Quotes
Welding Words of Wisdom...
1540
"This seems to me an ingenious thing, little used, but of great usefulness".
Vannoccio Biringuccio from his book "Pirotechnica"
1869
Welded Boilers - A contract was recently let to a Belgian firm for the making of twenty boilers thirteen feet long and three and a half in diameter - the whole to be of half-inch plates, and to be welded throughout. No English firm would take the contract.
Exchange
It would be interesting to know whether these boilers are to be welded by Bertram's gas welding process or some modification of it. We can hardley imagine how a perfect job could be made otherwise. We have seen at Woolwich a complex boiler completely and soundly welded by this process. "
Eclectic Engineering Magazine, No. XI - September 1869, Vol IX, page 864"
1887
“Electric welding is a simple , suitable and practical method suitable for numerous and useful types of application of electric current, and we should congratulate Mr. Benardos who with one turn of his hand managed to transform the laboratory into an entire branch of industry with considerable potential both at present and the future.”
E. Hospitalier, Nature, N574 pp57-58 (1887)
1889
"...As the metal is burnt and brittle where it is welded, the process is not a success."
U.S. Commissioner at the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition
1891
"It is not my present purpose to deal with any of these arc methods of electric metal-work. Their practicability is doubtful. So far as is known to the author, there are no existing instances of the use in practice of the electric arc for welding, though numerous attempts have been made, which from one cause or another have failed"
Prof. Elihu Thomson from his paper "On Welding Electricity"
1914
"The Kjellberg system is also based upon the use of a flux on the wire and the users of it make some very strong claims for it, but experience shows that work can be done satisfactory without flux for every kind of welding except iron castings, and the idea of expensive special electrodes is not very satisfactory to the operators."
G. W. Cravens from the book "Electrochemistry and Welding"
"On account of its (Pintsch Gas) high heating value and its stability, or resistance to pre-ignition, it is coming into use for high temperature work in conjunction with oxygen and bids fair to become a serious competitor of acetylene."
G. W. Cravens from the book "Electrochemistry and Welding. [Pintsch Gas is an oil gas used for lighting purposes and is used to light steam railway cars.]
1918
"My invention related to improvements in method of welding, has for its object the production of a weld which will be ductile, as strong or stronger than the metal welded, economical in the cost of labor and current, and which preferably avoids the preparation of the materials to be welded."
J. C. Lincoln in a patent issued.
1920
An editorial in the April 1920 issue of the The Welding Engineer laments that leading Engineering schools did not agree with the establishment of a Welding Engineering degree (W.E.), but that we should be turning out plain welders. The editorial of a previous month says in part, "believe that some day in the future some of our large universities will be conferring a degree in Welding Engineering". Writing back to the Editor, a Yale University Mechanical Engineering professor states: "I doubt if our large engineering institutions will ever give such specialized degrees as this but I do think the student should be taught to appreciate what can be done and if the field interests them sufficiently they may enter this field upon graduation."
The Welding Engineer, April 1920